Comments

grizley

Tedeaux, I am not commenting on the Mayor, per se, I am commenting on the lack of foresight by both the city government and county government. City Council OK'd the hockey team at Bowman field. And the mayor has nothing to do with the prison. I think most people in town knew the crowds would not sit outside in Dec., Jan., and Feb. to watch hockey. The prison is landlocked and was thought at the time it was built would be large enough for many years. Well they were close, but did not think far enough in the future.

Don521

Tedeaux

It was worth a shot at lobbying for a downtown sports arena! Basketball, even though everybody enjoys playing it in the back yards, never really drew a large audience to the Cajundome in Lafayette, LA, where we are from. The Cajundomes capacity is 11,700 seats and had never sold out a single basketball game...then came the Gulfcoast Hockey league. Who would have thought a bunch of Canadian chuckleheads could have such an effect on a bunch of South Louisiana Cajuns! ON AN ICE RINK AT THAT! These guys were great! They really brought the people of Louisiana together at a time when we needed it most! It was magic and I had hoped that this same magic could happen here in Central PA and pull all of the factions together in our community to work together in other ways as well. Bowman field was a joke as a hockey arena! Only about a quarter of the seats could even see the ice because the rink was jacked up to high and there were seats on only one side. It was pretty much over for the Outlaws

wwhickok

mike I meant that it's 'overfilled' with prisoners, not that it had prisoners in it. The issue is that we're running out of space, we have so many prisoners that they are packed in there like sardines.

CMReeder

spike2

The prison is not structurally built to add floors. Second, where would we house the inmates during the year or more of construction? Why would Wegmans sell? They own the land, not sure about Kohl's. The difference between transport problems is the ability to video -conference hearings, violations, etc. did not exist at the time of construction. I don't think you will get any support within the city to spend 40 million on a sports arena. This would be on the back of city taxpayers who are already over-stretched on taxes. A prison is a county project. This is funded by the entire county. The county is fiscally solid. The city is less so.

slickthedryfly

A lot of cities, like Allentown, have built hi-rise prisons. I'm sure they can figure out how to add four or five floors to the current jail, as for the hockey, I never did get a chance to drive the Zamboni.

wwhickok

Absolutely not Streetmachine. I hate that fact a Prison was ever even built inside of the city. Especially knowing it's jammed full of Prisoners.

It takes me back to the conversation of "they said they are going to release all the non-violent inmates", well if you do that and have enough beds, there's no reason to build a new prison. So use that $40 million to improve the roads in the city and make substantial improvements for the citizens who live here in the County.

mikekerstetter

Tedeaux

With all respect Dean, the comparison between building another county jail and the City picking up the tab for some left over bills for a now defunct sports team is a poor one. If you don't like the mayor, why not just come out and say it straight up. Now if you had said we should take the $40 million dollars we're fixing to blow on the new and minimally improved jail and spend it on a new downtown multi-purpose sports arena (with hockey in mind), now that would have made for a truly progressive discussion for the future of Williamsport!